


Fair and Tender Ladies

by Eirenne Saijima (ladypoetess)



Category: Songcatcher (2000)
Genre: Background Character Death, Based on a True Story, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21948652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladypoetess/pseuds/Eirenne%20Saijima
Summary: It's been seven years since the Clover Settlement School burned and Harriet Tolliver disappeared from Eleanor's life. The world is changing in terrible and frightening ways, some large and some small, when a familiar -- if older -- face appears at the new school's door.
Relationships: Eleanor "Elna" Penleric/Harriet Tolliver
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Fair and Tender Ladies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slightlykylie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlykylie/gifts).



> I've been wanting to write this fic for an age, and I'm so glad I got the opportunity this year!

It was late in the afternoon on that warm, early autumn afternoon, and I was knitting while the students in the school room worked on their sums under the direction of the other teacher. Alice Kincaid had come to help me with the school after her husband died at the hands of Josie Moore. We had both lost the stability in our lives, such as it was, within hours of each other, and I suppose it seemed natural to her that we should help one another. Besides, with Reese gone, Alice had to have some way to keep body and soul together and fill the bellies of her babies. Since Alice could already read and write, and had been teaching her own children all their lives, she was already one of the best choices in the community.

I would have preferred a trained teacher, but I didn't feel I could leave the community long enough to find someone to help me. I'd intended to place advertisements in newspapers, but finding someone who wanted to move to an isolated mountain settlement in the western part of North Carolina didn't seem all that likely. No, it was better for the community here to just take on Alice and teach her to be a teacher myself. Besides, she was a beautiful painter, and knew something of music. Not like my sister, of course, but enough to be able to teach the children some of the ways of reading music along with making art with paint and pigment.

I'd been corresponding with teachers in other places, both within America and outside of it, learning about the things that were stressed in education in places other than my own backwoods mountain community. The more rural a school was, the more they were likely to teach the basic life skills that my students needed to know, such as proper hygiene and nutrition, along with traditional subjects like reading and mathematics. The more urban an area a school was in, the less these things were taught, replaced by art, music, dancing, and sport. It made me some mix of sad and angry that my students did not have that same kind of opportunity, and so I had been encouraging Alice to teach the art she knew to the children alongside the other subjects.

There was less need to focus on music during school time, given how much the local music pervades all aspects of life here, but Mrs. McFarland had gotten one thing right on that long-ago afternoon tea: if you teach some kind of refinement, one that people enjoy, they will seek it out. I did not necessarily think that proper tea service was the key in this community, but my students deserve the chance to know pretty, fun, refined things as much as the things they would need in their everyday lives.

Uncle Cratus had passed on about four years back, which meant that there was less general push back from even the more religious members of the community about the 'frivolities' we included in our curriculum. Oh, there were a few older folks who grumbled about it, but I think they were secretly glad their grandchildren had the chance to learn more than just what was required to survive on the mountain. I was still trying to find a way to appease them, though. Maybe someone who could come in and teach some of the advanced agriculture I'd been reading about in my letters...

I was lost in thought enough that I hardly noticed when someone knocked softly on the frame of the door to the new school house. It wasn't until a young boy raced from the door over to Alice, bouncing on his toes as he gestured toward the door, that I realized that it had been a knock at all. I put my needles and yarn down beneath my desk and watched curiously as Alice went to the door, shooing the boy back to his seat as she went. When she let out a delighted cry and hugged the unseen person on the other side of the door, I rose to find out who had come to visit.

"Alice? Who is-" I stopped abruptly when I saw my sister standing on the doorstep, a woman who I could only assume was Deladis standing near behind her. "Lily? Truly?"

"Hello, little elf." Lily's smile was mischievous and delighted. "These five miles are somewhat easier going than I remember them being."

"Oh! Yes, when McFarland's got enough of a toehold on the mountain they put in roads that lead at least back to the railways. They didn't get everything they were seeking when you were here last, because there are some stalwarts like Viney who won't sell, but it was enough to justify some infrastructure in the area." I felt like I was going to cry from the surprise and joy if I stopped babbling.

Alice smiled and laid a hand on my arm. "Maybe we can let the children out a little bit early today. It's harvest time, after all."

"Yes, yes I think that would be good." I turned to the room and clapped my hands. "School is dismissed early today, children. Say good bye to Mrs. Alice and collect your things."

There was an uneven chorus of 'Good bye Mrs. Alice' and 'bye-bye Miss Elna' from more than half a dozen little voices as they gathered their primers and slates with a little strap to carry them. I watched the children until they had nearly all left. The remaining three were youngest Kincaid children, and they clustered around their mother as she talked to Lily through the door.

"Thank you, Alice." I smiled at her as she looked back over her shoulder at me. "I'll see you tomorrow for school."

"Are you sure, Miss Elna?" Her eyes flicked toward the door and back.

"Yes, quite sure. I wouldn't want to disrupt the children's education too much, though I am grateful for the extra time this afternoon." I assured her.

She nodded and herded her children out the door to begin the walk home. She had gained strength and health in the years since Reese had died, and she'd stopped birthing another new baby every year. Viney had told her she might not live through another birthing, and I think that as much as anything else kept her from taking up with any of the available men on the mountain. As a widow she wasn't looked at the way I was, a spinster. She was left in peace to raise her children and heal from all that came before.

I shook myself out of the reverie and moved to open the door the rest of the way...

Harriet Tolliver was standing there.

There was more grey in the hair around her face that escaped her chignon. The glasses perched on her nose had a little line in the middle of the lenses. There were a few dark spots on the highest parts of her cheeks. But it was Harriet, _my_ Harriet. Standing here, in front of me, after she'd made good on her promise to disappear if anyone ever found out about us.

"Hello, my darling girl." Harriet's voice was as strong and steady as ever, and it didn't feel like any time at all had passed since I had last heard it. Forever had passed since I last heard her call me that.

Someone let out a sob, and I was only a little surprised when I realized it was me. I put my fingertips over my mouth and backed into the room, leaving room for her to come through the door.

She did, followed by Lily, who was still smiling and now looked like a satisfied cat, and the silent woman I was assuming was Deladis.

And that didn't matter because _Harriet_ was here. Somehow, Harriet was _here_.

We looked at each other silently for the endless moments while Lily and the other one brought their bags into the school. When the door latch clicked home, shutting the rest of mountain outside, Harriet rushed forward and gathered me into her arms, whispering apologies and words of love into my hair as I sobbed into her shoulder, broken and healed at once. I didn't notice that Lily had busied herself with settling into one of the rooms built into the back of the school house, or that a voice I would definitely have recognized as Deladis had begun singing as she helped.

After some time (I have no idea how long) I lifted my head from Harriet's shoulder and wiped my swollen eyes, seeing for the first time that Harriet was crying behind her odd little spectacles. "Where did you go?" I hadn't meant that to be my first question, but it was as good as any a place to begin.

Harriet brushed the damp hair from my cheeks and inhaled deeply. "I did not go as far as I thought I would. I was up in Tennessee, at first, not teaching in a school but doing private tutoring. It was there, in an old Confederate capitol, where I ran into Tom Bledsoe."

I felt a flash of hot fury and I looked toward the room where I could hear Lily talking quietly. Before I could move, Harriet laid her palm against my face and shook her head.

"No, my darling girl, she did not know." Harriet led me to the bench seat by the unlit fireplace and bid me sit.

I sat.

"Tom told me they'd come down the mountain to make recordings of mountain music to sell, and they were there because it was becoming a place for musicians to come together. I begged him not to tell Lily he'd seen me there, because I knew she would tell you, and I did not want any more backlash for our actions to reach you than what surely already had." She took my hands in hers and stroked my fingers, lingering over the finger where a wedding ring would have sat in some other life.

"And he agreed," I said. "He must have, since I've never heard of this."

"Yes, he promised not to tell, so long as I promised to keep in contact with him. I could not very well refuse, and so I made the bargain." Harriet smiled wanly. "He wasn't the best correspondent, but we exchanged short letters a few times a year, and that let me hear occasional news about you and the school here."

"Lily asked me to go back to the city with her, right after the fire," I said quietly. "If I had gone, I might have found you."

"You may have, but I wasn't ready to be found, darling." Harriet's smile was tinged with regret. "I had to come to some truths on my own before I could come back to you, and I didn't know then if I would ever get there."

"So why are you here now, with Lily and... Deladis?" At Harriet's confirmatory nod about the woman's identity, I continued. "What changed that made it so you could come back here, to me?"

"What happened was that Tom died, Elna." Lily's voice from the doorway was tired. "Some lingering effects from working in the coal mines, the doctors told me. He'd begun to cough a few years ago, and it progressed in recent months. He succumbed to it a month and a half gone."

"Oh, Lily, I'm so sorry." My stomach twisted with mix of grief and anger and guilt. "Has anyone sent word to Viney yet?"

"Not that I know of. That is part of why we are here."

My gaze flicked to Harriet and Lily nodded.

"I was going through Tom's papers after he died and I found the letters from Harriet. I wrote to her, explained what had happened, and asked if she was ready to see you, and if she would like to accompany us back to Clover."

"It took me a few days, but I wrote back that I was, and that I would meet them at the train station down in Asheville." Harriet smiled when Deladis came into the room and stood behind the chair Lily had taken. "I was quite surprised to see the woman Deladis had grown into, however."

"Indeed," I smiled at Deladis myself. "I'm sorry I didn't greet you before, Deladis. You are looking very well; it seems city living agrees with you."

To my surprise, Deladis did not smile in return.

"Not really, Miss Elna."

Lily took up the story. "Deladis has been like a daughter to both Tom and me these last seven years, but she's missed her home. She tired of traveling around with us to sell the recordings of Tom's mountain music and has been studying to be a teacher the last four years."

"You always were a smart girl, Deladis, it is no surprise that you sought to learn how to teach others in turn," Harriet's tone was approving, just as it always had been for a pupil who had figured out a challenge.

"I want to stay here and teach at the school, Miss Elna," Deladis's voice had a pleading note. "I'd be good at it, I promise."

"I'm sure of it, Deladis, believe me." I was a little stunned, but I wasn't sure I could really feel any additional shocks right now. "I've had Alice Kincaid helping me here for the last several years. When I lost... well, everything, and she lost poor Reese in the same day, it seemed best to try to help each other."

"Oh. And you don't need a third teacher here, then, do you?" Deladis's disappointment was palpable.

Lily reached up and patted her hand, "Don't fret yet, my dear. We'll find a solution."

A full and tense silence descended then, until Lily stood and declared her intention to make some dinner, which spurred the rest of us to move and help.

Later, after the dishes had been washed, and Lily and Deladis had retreated to their beds, I invited Harriet to my room to talk. I listened as she told me about her years as a tutor, then as a teacher at a big school in a city. She'd been doing some of the same kinds of correspondence as I had; learning how other people educate children can reveal surprising gaps in your own methods. We'd been talking to some of the same people in Scandinavian countries, even.

I told her about the long years on the mountain, and how the community had helped me rebuild the school. Hilliard had eventually left the mountain, or at least this part of it, and Fate had seemed to settle down for a time after he married Polly. But then the violence had come back, and when he wasn't knocking her or their young son around, he was getting into drunken fights with other men, particularly ones who dared to work for the McFarland company. One of those left him at the bottom of a ravine, his neck broken and Polly a young widow.

We talked until we both fell asleep in the deep hours of the night, the star light through the windows shining off the silver hairs around Harriet's face.

The next morning, I got ready for school, while Lily and Deladis set out for Bear Creek, to tell Viney that her grandson had died. Harriet stayed behind, tucked up in my room, reading through the pile of correspondence I'd left out for her. That evening, we sat together and ate dinner, talking about Tom and the best memories we had to share. Eventually the conversation turned to plans for the future.

"What of you, Lily? What do you want to do?" Harriet asked, judging that to be the safest direction to inquire.

"I'd like to travel, I think. Without it being for work, that is." She smiled sadly. "Tom and I traveled frequently, of course, selling the music cylinders. But I'd like to take some time before I do anything else."

"Well," Harriet sounded hesitant, but persisted. "I was reading some of the correspondence that Elna has had with other educators, and several in northern Europe have invited her to visit and learn from them."

"Yes, but that's not feasible, is it?" I scoffed. "Surely they were just being polite."

"I doubt that very much," Harriet countered. "I've corresponded with some of these same people and they are not prone to exaggeration."

Silence fell for a beat, the only noise the crackling of the fire in the stove.

"We could both go, and take Lily along with us? It's far enough north to be well away from the growing unrest I've been reading about in the papers." Harriet's voice was tentative now.

"What about the school here? I can't abandon the children, and while Alice is proving herself capable, she's not a formally trained teacher!"

"I am." Deladis spoke quietly.

Silence fell again as we all looked at each other.

"I could stay here and take over the school, and Mrs. Alice and I could teach while you and Miss Harriet and Doc go traveling." Deladis's eyes were bright with hope. "I'm not made for life in the other world, and all my kin are buried here on this mountain."

I took a deep breath.

"Ok. Let's do this."

"You'll come?" Harriet's voice was small but full of fragile longing. "Truly?"

"Truly." I reached out and took her hand in mine, tracing my fingertips over the ring finger of her left hand. "As long as you are with me, I'll go anywhere, do anything. Just stay with me."

"Always, my darling girl." A pair of silvery tears escaped as Harriet looked into my eyes. "I'll never leave you again."

As Lily's musical laugh began next to me, the joy broke through the tears and both of us joined her. Soon Deladis was laughing, and it seemed like everything was going to be just the way it should be.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based in part on the real life person the character of Lily Penleric was drawn from. Olive Dame Campbell was the real life songcatcher who discovered and helped collect the ballads from the Appalachian mountain people. Her husband had been a educator who studied social and cultural conditions in different places in an attempt to improve their schools. After his death, Olive had continued his work, collecting and publishing his notes. After publishing that book under her husband's name, Olive traveled to Europe on a fellowship to study the Danish Folk School style of education, and she was accompanied by her sister, Daisy Dame, and her colleague Marguerite Butler, the women spent 18 months traveling between Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, visiting local schools along the way. [[Source]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Dame_Campbell)


End file.
